When I first heard they were doing a GA show on the CW without Justin, my initial reaction was, "well, that's stupid." And for what it's worth, I still think it's stupid. I mean, I understand why the creators want to go their own direction (the showrunners are not affiliated with Millar/Gough) and not be tied down to the continuity of Smallville. I get that. Heck, even Gough and Millar themselves went a completely different direction when they initially planned an Aquaman show, so I don't begrudge the writers for going outside the Smallville universe. But if that's the case, why bother doing a Green Arrow show in the first place?

The only reason, in my opinion, anyone ever clamored for a GA show to begin with is because they wanted to see a spinoff of the character as portrayed on Smallville. I know the CW wanted another superhero show to replace SV, but why not use a different character? There are, literally, hundreds of characters in the DCU to choose from. But Ollie was integral to SV for the last half-decade, why re-intro him to CW audiences if you're not going to tie it to the original?